MANORAMA SAVURBuds
Of Poison Is A LieThe author of And the Bamboo Flowers in the
Indian Forests joins issue with the Minister for Development and his
threat to clearfell the bamboo forests in the Northeast. It would be an
ecological disaster, she warns.

Vedic chanting makes
it to UNESCO's intangible heritage of humanity list, only to ruffle a few
feathers

HARSH KABRA

On November 7, when
Vedic chanting glistened on UNESCO's list of 28 masterpieces of oral and
intangible heritage selected from 80 international entries, it also cast a
self-adulatory glow on the Indian government, more specifically the
Department of Culture (DoC).

the world's oldest
living oral traditions, faced with apathy, adulteration and outright
extinction, the DoC had embarked upon a UNESCO-endorsed five-year action
plan to set up 15 Vedic pathshalas at a cost of Rs 5.3 crore to offer
five-year courses under the traditional gurukul system of oral teaching.
As part of the plan, it proposed to tap au fait gurus, form a phalanx of
authoritative pundits, restore the rigour of 'pristine' Vedic
articulation, resurrect near-forgotten modes of chanting, document the
chants, drive refresher courses for existing practitioners and incubate
common curricula.

Subsequently, the DoC approached UNESCO to get Vedic chanting recognised
as an 'intangible heritage of humanity' to win foreign financial support
for the cause.

"The
Vedas don't need outside honours to confirm their importance."

The Indira Gandhi
National Centre for Arts, Delhi, was roped in to prepare a presentation
showcasing the evanescent tradition. After much dawdling over whether
any recognition to the Vedas would amount to patronising a particular
religion,

a UNESCO team visited
India earlier this year and returned convinced about the sheer cultural
wealth of the oral practices linked to the 'scriptures'.

But Navya Shastra (NS), a US-based global organisation of Hindu scholars,
activists, priests and lay people, has taken umbrage at the clubbing of
the "seminal texts of a world religion" with folk arts (see
box). "The Vedas and its chanting tradition form the fountainhead,
the very epicentre, of the religious beliefs of over 800 million
people," Vikram Masson, co-chairman, NS, told Outlook from
New Jersey. "Be it a farmer in Tamil Nadu or a fisherman in Bengal,
some part of his spiritual worldview has been inspired by the utterances
of the rishis. By closeting the Vedas with other cultural expressions,
UNESCO has marginalised and diminished the most important scriptures in
the Hindu tradition." Reasons Koichiro Matsuura, DG, UNESCO:
"This proclamation doesn't simply recognise the value of some
elements of the intangible heritage; it entails the commitment of the
state to implement plans to promote and safeguard the masterpiece."

But Masson isn't satisfied: "The government should have taken
other measures to safeguard the Vedic tradition. It could have sought the
assistance of home-grown philanthropic organisations. The Vedas,
central

Experts
say that four noted Vedic schools are in the danger of closing down.

to Indian culture for
over 4,000 years, don't need outside honours to confirm their
importance."

Yet, confirming the importance of this tradition may not be as critical
as salvaging the tradition itself. Even UNESCO concurs: "Although
the Vedas continue to play an important role in India, this ancient oral
tradition now faces difficulties owing to current economic conditions and
modernisation. Experts claim that four noted schools of Vedic
recitation?in Orissa, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala?may be in danger
of closing down."

The DoC study unravelled depressing statistics to corroborate this. It
said that while only two of the Rig Veda's 20 branches and 21
sub-branches, six of the Yajur Veda's 101 branches, three of the Sama
Veda's 1,000 branches, and two of Atharva Veda's nine branches existed
today, four schools of Vedic chanting?Paippalada, Ranayaniya, Jaiminiya,
and Maitrayani?were about to vanish. The study pointed out that while
there were nearly 500 traditional Vedic pathshalas, there were only
300-odd teachers drilling fewer than 1,500 students. With Vedic
traditions losing talent to other professions, the ilk of those deft at
accurate chanting has shrivelled.

MANORAMA SAVURBuds
Of Poison Is A LieThe author of And the Bamboo Flowers in the
Indian Forests joins issue with the Minister for Development and his
threat to clearfell the bamboo forests in the Northeast. It would be an
ecological disaster, she warns.

UNESCO recognition has also ratcheted up the debate on whether Vedic
education should be accessible to Brahmins alone, which has drawn the
likes of Dr Iniyan Elango, co-founder, Dalit Media Network, into
dubbing the denial of admission to Dalits into Vedic schools as a proof
of how "the Hindu identity is thrust on the very people victimised
by it".

Aeons of popular misinterpretation, ritualism and caste jackets have
undermined the Vedic bequest. Says scholar Dr David Frawley: "The
yogic teaching was made a secret largely as a defensive measure from
repeated foreign invasions. The closed nature the teaching assumed in
the Middle Ages is not characteristic of its true nature, which is open
to all but does not seek to impose itself on anyone."

But Masson says the DoC's action plan mandates that applicants to
pathshalas be Brahmin boys only. "Since the Vedas are the heritage
of humanity and the available pool of Brahmins has diminished
substantially in the last 50 years, students must be chosen on a
caste-blind basis," he argues. "By endorsing the government plan,
UNESCO is endorsing the caste system." A senior DoC official
refutes this: "UNESCO's declaration is only an acknowledgement of
the oral tradition's intrinsic value. There's no proposal whatsoever at
the government level to restrict it to a particular caste or
community."

Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan, mission director, National Mission for
Manuscripts, and the author of the candidature files submitted to
UNESCO, dismisses the fears as unfounded: "Our focus is on the
Vedic chanters. We aren't even looking at the knowledge aspect of the
Vedas, much less their religious connection. We are only seeking to
preserve a mnemonically inherited tradition, which has no parallels and
is faced with the danger of extinction today. There's no mention of any
caste in the files or the action plan."

Although conventionally overlapping with Brahminhood, Vedic schools
link it to the caste canon in a looser definition. "We wouldn't
turn away a non-Brahmin seeking admission to a course," reveals a
senior teacher from a Vedic school in south Maharashtra. "But the
thread ceremony is a prerequisite for him to qualify for training.
Being a Brahmin is all about good conduct. That's how Vishwamitra, a
Kshatriya, became Brahmarshi."

Institutions like his continue to outdare the lack of money, community
support and quality learners. "People see Vedic pathshalas as the
last resort, where Brahmins who fail to come through academic
competition can be accommodated," says S.P. Joshi, secretary of
the 125-year-old Pune Veda Pathshala. "Brahmins are increasingly
looking at Vedic training as a shortcut to respectable living."

To further muddy the issue, the more cussed of critics see in this a
bjp regime furthering a rightist agenda in the garb of culture.
Competitive modern ideologies, of all ilks, may yet be the final
spoiler in this uneasy cohabitation between the need to preserve
heritage and more mundane materialistic worries